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Sunflower Bean Set to Return with “Twentytwo in Blue”, a Second Album Made For Today

Blue, as Julia Cumming of Brooklyn’s Sunflower Bean points out, is something of a “loaded color.” The word is of course often synonymous with sadness—certainly blues music isn’t known for its laughs. But blue is also the United Nations’ internationally recognized color of peace; the stripe in the rainbow on the Pride flag that represents serenity; and the “emotional color” of Sunflower Bean’s upcoming sparkling second album, Twentytwo in Blue. “We definitely don’t want it to come across as a sad record,” explains Cumming. “Blue is kind of hopeful, and we wanted to explore that color with this record.” The new LP by vocalist and bassist Cumming, drummer Jacob Faber and guitarist and vocalist Nick Kivlen is many things: rousing, romantic, topical, empathetic and insightful. But defeatist it’s not.

All three band members will in fact be 22 when Twentytwo in Blue is released in March of 2018, almost two years and two months after Sunflower Bean’s hazy, charming debut LP, Human Ceremony. They were two momentous years for the trio, who’ve now toured the world multiple times over on headlining stints and as support for indie rock essentials like DIIV, Best Coast, The Vaccines, Pixies and Wolf Alice. By the month, they only grew in accomplishment, and gained a newly confident voice they bring to the second album, one that doesn’t shy away from addressing the other events of those two years—political changes and cultural shifts that have left America and the world stupefied. “This has been such an unbelievable time,” says Kivlen. “I can’t imagine any artist of our ilk making a record and not have it be seen through the lens of the political climate of 2016 and 2017. So I think there’s a few songs on the record that are definitely heavily influenced by this sort of—whatever you want to say what the Trump administration has been.” “A shit show,” offers a helpful Faber.

The resistance is full-throated on Twentytwo in Blue, on tracks like “Burn It”, a rollicking power pop opener that declares war on the status quo: “The street it has my name/ I burn it to the ground.” “Crisis Fest” is a call to millennial arms, melding pop shimmer and drive with the personal and political. “2017—we know/ Reality’s one big sick show/ Every day’s a crisis fest”, Cumming sings. There are references to missile tests, “80 grand” in school debt, and a “coup” in the country, and an urgent, determined rave-up hook that puts the establishment on notice: “If you hold us back, you know that we can shout/ We brought you into this place/ You know we can take you out!” “It’s less a song about Donald Trump than it is about more of a generational divide,” says Kivlen. “And the ideals of tomorrow and progressive-leaning groups versus people who want things to stay the same or go backwards. It speaks to how our generation are demonized or seen as lazy, when actually we’re the most educated. People call us ‘snowflakes’ because we have sensitive ideals. But being sensitive is a good thing, because we’re attuned to people who’ve been tread on throughout history.”

The Nude Party congealed as one unit in the southern mountain town of Boone, NC in 2013 and gained their namesake very literally. Bonded by isolation, house party debauchery, a religion based on pushing the limits of bad taste, and a precocious predisposition towards the Kinks, the Animals and the Velvets, they have burgeoned into a rock and roll act to be reckoned with. As the hysteria at their local shows steadily increases, so does their reputation with local law enforcement, forcing them daily more to seek employment anywhere but home. While snooping cops seeking to stamp out indiscriminate behavior scour the borders of their homestead the Nude Ranch, the group has prodigally exiled themselves and are staying scarce with a string of self booked tours and one night stands which have linked them up with with such likes as The Growlers, The Oblivians, La Luz, Night Beats, and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard.
Their stripped down and bare bone sound, akin to the British Invasion being transplanted back into the Carolina mountains, has so far proven to have been unrecordable… until now. The secret? Sticking to the obvious and going down into a sweaty basement with a few mics, fewer clothes and a revolving door of comrades and goddesses falling by for as long as they can take the heat. Lately the Nudes have even gotten good at playing with their clothes on. However if any audience member feels the need to participate in the spirit of exhibitionism the stakes at the Party will unblinkingly be called and raised.